A Sad Day for Education in Texas

              Education in Texas has faced some turmoil in recent years and, as a college student, I feel that I must pay close attention to this issue.  State lawmakers have slashed funding from education yearly at great cost to local public schools and to the students who attend these schools.  Last year many public schools were closed because we did not have the funding to keep them open.  Rick Perry and Texas lawmakers refused to take money from the Texas Rainy Day Fund even though it could have saved hundreds of jobs for these teachers. “The Associated Press reported that up to 100,000 of the state's 330,000 teachers might lose their positions (Tan, Thanh).”

                Educating children is the future of our world.  We cannot afford to have children jammed into overcrowded classrooms to be taught by overworked teachers and expect good results for our future. Student to teacher ratios in the state of Texas are already high but now you are adding extra students to a class. This does not benefit these children in any way.  The teachers, who do well to make it around a normal sized class, will now have to struggle to find the time to actually teach their students.  In a state that regularly scores low in the national testing scores, it is a wonder that our lawmakers would approve such budget cuts.

                According to Nsenga Burton of “The Root” what is even more shameful is that Texas lawmakers, while agreeing to cut funding from public schools, have also agreed to “pay $25 million per year through 2022 to Formula One auto racing.”  This project is project to add 1,300 hundred temporary jobs to the Texas economy, which in no way offsets the more than 100,000 teachers scheduled to be laid off.  “A total of 100,000 teachers are being laid off while millions are invested in a sport enjoyed by extremely wealthy people (Burton, Nsenga).”

                Our legislature’s priorities are obviously misplaced as far as education in Texas is concerned. We cannot sellout future generations for the sake of entertainment.  In order to ensure the survival of our great state and country, education has to shift to one of our primary focuses.  Our children deserve better that the lot they have been given and I sincerely hope our lawmakers will consider them during the next legislative session.